Ever notice that even courage is subject to a double standard? We honor those who overcome the innate fear of death to act in defense of our country. Yet, those who do likewise in defense of life and property are frequently admonished for not being good victims. People like Tony Nader must find this hard to take.

Nader was working one April evening at Bella Variety, a convenience store on Chestnut Street in Nashua. Customers present knew Nader carried a sidearm, but there?s always some doofus who doesn?t get the word.

Sure enough, a would-be robber wielding a revolver and wearing a bandana charged through the door. He threw a bag on the counter and yelled at Nader to fill it with cash.

While threatening to kill everybody, the robber stuck his gun in Nader?s face. To motivate Nader, the gunman punctuated his threats with profanity and cocked the revolver.

Nader picked up the bag as though he were going to comply with the demand. Instead, he dropped it. This distracted the gunman for an instant. That?s all Nader needed to grab the robber?s pistol with one hand and pull the semiautomatic from his belt with the other.

When faced with resistance, the robber?s tough-guy facade wilted like an over-watered petunia. He pulled away and ran. Nader gave chase, but called it quits.

Not so for the robber. He went where victims are more cooperative and held up another market.

One might be forgiven for thinking Nader?s bravery would at least be mentioned by someone. Not in today?s society. What Nader did was politically incorrect.

Nashua police implied Nader should have been a good victim and freely given his property to the criminal. The spokesman said, ?The more weapons become involved, the more chance somebody could get hurt.?

Obviously, the spokesman was regurgitating department policy, but is insisting that people always be good, defenseless victims sound advice? An Internet search on convenience store robberies raises serious doubts. Numerous incidents are documented in which robbers murdered helpless and compliant victims for reasons known only to those robbers.

In Westland, Mich., Michael Lamont Schofield robbed a convenience store. In the process he killed four people and wounded two others. His girlfriend, Leslie Gordon, acted as lookout while Schofield methodically fired one shot into each of the two unarmed clerks and four customers. That they were all good victims while they waited to die was irrelevant to the killers.

In another instance, two men killed an unarmed convenience store clerk in Houston, Texas. Neighbors told investigators the clerk was a nervous person in fear of the local crime rate. They said he?d have given no resistance and would have given his money over freely. Once again, being a good victim didn?t matter to the criminals.

These and other such stories lead to an ominous conclusion: criminals are incapable of feeling sympathy for their victims. Hence, posing no threat holds little promise of avoiding harm. And that?s not all. In many cases, the absence of a threat actually attracts criminals.

John Lott is a former economics and law professor at the University of Chicago. In his book, ?More Guns, Less Crime,? he argues that very point. It was exemplified when Minnesota?s recently adopted concealed carry law went into effect.

Most businesspeople quickly armed themselves, but a minority who equated guns with evil were appalled. To protest their armed colleagues, they put up signs proclaiming their businesses ?gun free.? Guess where the criminals went.

After several armed robberies in gun-free stores the intellectual light went on. Anti-gun proprietors quietly stopped advertising the fact they were not armed.

However, this change of heart pales beside that of the nationally acclaimed Charleston, S.C., Police Chief Reuben Greenberg. He had always viewed citizens defending themselves with firearms negatively.

That changed when Greenberg encountered evidence contrary to his views. A good example is the record of one downtown business in a high-crime area. Despite its location, it hadn?t been held up in 20 years. Greenberg found criminals avoided it because they were aware the owner and the employees all packed pistols.

The radical, UC-Berkely educated Greenberg reassessed his self-defense position. Now, he no longer discourages those who wish to protect themselves. This inflames some people and impresses others. Regardless, it shows that Charleston?s first black police chief is not a prisoner of ideology. If only this were true of more law enforcement people.

It certainly wasn?t true of the Nashua police spokesman, who said of Nader?s action, ?Not only do we not encourage it, we seriously frown on it.? In making that remark he not only showed contempt for Nader?s courage, but he also conveyed a veiled threat to others who might someday be faced with the choice of defending their lives or becoming good victims.

That?s just more grief for people in crime-risky occupations to worry about, but for Tony Nader it shouldn?t be a concern. He?s already established that Bella Variety is not a good place to rob.

It's interesting to note that the devices people are carrying are held responsible for this surge in crime. Maybe the fact the law abiding are denied the tools and the legal structure to resist these attacks has something to do with this surge.

The iPod generation is helping to fuel a surge in street crime, Britain's top policeman claimed today.

Met Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said the latest generation of mobile phones and iPods with their distinctive white leads were partly behind a shock 26 per cent jump in street robbery last month.

New figures published today show gun crime also leapt by 35 per cent in April compared with the same month last year and the number of violent offences increased by 13 per cent.

In a report to the Metropolitan Police Authority, the Commissioner said the Met had suffered "a bad few weeks" but that crime in the capital was still falling.

He said urgent measures had been put in place to tackle the increases and he believed they were now under control.

The rise in some offences last month was partly due to the early Easter break, which meant the traditionally quiet period fell in March rather than April.

Senior officers admitted the battle against street crime had also suffered because of the loss of a ?12 million government grant which funded anti-robbery task forces in London.

Assistant Commissioner Tim Godwin said there had been a rise in opportunistic robberies, mainly by schoolchildren. Many involved the "happy slapping" craze in which children use mobile phones to film assaults.

The leap in robbery is a serious setback to the government-driven campaign against street crime. It is driven mainly by gangs, some of whom are as young as 10. One group on BMX-type bikes robbed 100 people in two months outside a Tottenham Tube station, concentrating on the latest phones which can be sold on for ?30-?40.

More than half of all street crime in London involves the theft of a mobile and it is believed more than 700,000 phones are stolen each year.

MPA member Cindy Butts said she was concerned about an unprecedented 35 per cent increase in gun crime in London. She hit out at Home Secretary Charles Clarke for failing to take gun crime in the black community seriously.

Judith Kuntz, 64, hunkered down in her darkened bedroom late Sunday evening, arming herself with a revolver.

A burglar had just broken into her Indialantic home and, fearing for her life, she said she let her instincts take over.

When the burglar, who had a flashlight, entered the room, Kuntz fired one round from her .38-caliber handgun.

Hit squarely in the chest, the unidentified intruder ran outside, where he collapsed and died.

On Monday, Kuntz was still shaken, but she briefly recalled her ordeal.

"I'm doing fine under the circumstances," she said. "I don't take any joy in somebody being dead. My self-preservation instinct took over."

She would not discuss the incident further.

"I don't feel real safe," said Kuntz, who has lived alone since her husband died nearly five years ago. "This has been a horrifying experience."

The Brevard County Sheriff's Office said she was justified in defending herself and will not face charges. The revolver was hers, inherited through her family, investigators said.

Agent Lou Heyn of the Sheriff's Office said the unidentified man entered Kuntz's home on Avenida del Mar by pulling the window off a back door.

"Occupied burglaries are rare, and this underscores that it is dangerous for the burglar and the homeowner," Heyn said. "Crime can be a tough career."

The intruder, who was not carrying identification, was described as a white male 35 to 45 years old, with dark-brown hair and a dark-brown mustache. He was wearing light-blue swim shorts, tennis shoes and a blue T-shirt.

Investigators are hoping to identify him through his tattoos. He has a cross on his right hand between his index finger and thumb and a Harley-Davidson motorcycle on his upper left arm. There also are the names of at least four women tattooed on his upper right arm.

Anyone with information about the man is encouraged to call the Sheriff's Office at 321-633-7162 or Central Florida Crimeline at 1-800-423-TIPS.

The right to keep and bear arms is one of the most passionately debated issues on the American political stage. Patriots, gun owners, liberals, the media, hunters - a dozen different factions are wrangling back and forth to determine what the role of firearms will be in the future of this country.

We who follow the way of the warrior have an interest in this debate. Guns represent the weapons technology of our era, and, however much we might hearken back to the gleaming blades of an earlier century, we owe it to ourselves to follow the back-and-forth of this controversy.

The Second Amendment to the Constitution is the main line of defense against gun-grabbers, of course. But our involvement with weapons, and their essential role in preserving freedom and honor, goes back far into the dim mists of history - to a time when the Constitution and the nation it came to represent was undreamed of.

In ancient Europe, weapons had a religious character. Odin, father of the Gods in the Norse myths, carried a great spear named Gungnir. He wandered around the world, disguised in his floppy hat and long cloak, giving magical swords to his favored heroes. With these, they were expected to perform great deeds on the battlefield and, when their lives were done, to join Odin in Valhalla. There, with other great souls, the hero would prepare for the ultimate conflict of Ragnarok.

There is some evidence that the fallen warrior's weapon would accompany him into the afterlife. He was buried with it, of course, but that's not all - in some graves, the sword has been heated and twisted out of shape, as though it was being "killed" so that its spirit could accompany that of its owner into the Otherworld. Besides, he would no doubt need it as he walked the dangerous, ordeal-ridden "Hel-road" that leads to the realm of the Gods.

In Germanic society, however, weapons weren't just present at the end of life. They played a role in its beginning, as well. A new-born infant would be offered a taste of salt from the tip of a sword as its welcome into the world. Later, when he grew into manhood, the youth would be given his first shield and blade (whether sword, or axe, or spear) on the day he was initiated into the tribal assembly. This panoply represented his duty to defend his kin, as well as his rights as a freeman - even then, the link between weapons and freedom was understood. This folkway carried over into the Middle Ages, when a man about to be knighted stood prayerful vigil over his arms and armor throughout the night.

Oaths were sworn on weapons, and the steel might be called upon to turn against its owner if the words which were spoken over it were not true.

In the lore of the Vikings, Odin himself tells his followers to be armed. As the poem called the Havamal warns us,

A wayfarer should not walk unarmed,

But have his weapons to hand:

He never knows when he may need a spear,

Or what menace meet on the road.

But it wasn't just the Norsemen who idolized their weaponry; the ancient Celts shared this sentiment. The Iceni, as a typical British tribe, possessed certain weapons which were held to be particularly sacred. The Romans decided to confiscate them to prevent an uprising - thereby bringing about the very thing they were hoping to avert. Under their fiery queen, the red-haired Boudicca, the Iceni rose in revolt and almost ended the Roman occupation of the British Isles.

Such a preoccupation with instruments of destruction, some might say, is now out of date. After all, we live in a kinder, gentler world than that of the ancient Teutonic and Celtic tribes. We're civilized now. Death doesn't threaten our daily lives, and if danger does appear, we call the police.

One problem with this viewpoint is that the police often don't come, or they don't come in time to do any good. You could get killed many times over, with a gratuitous rape thrown in for good measure, between the time your fingers dial 911 and the time a squad car pulls up in front of your house. The cops are outnumbered, outgunned, and generally out of the scenario. In real life, you're on your own.

While we're at it, let's look at the idea that our world is less violent than that of, say, the Vikings. According to M.I. Steblin-Kamenskij in his book The Saga Mind, we have a record of acts of violence in Iceland over a period of several centuries. At the height of the heroic age in that Viking colony, when every freeman carried a sword or axe or spear, the per capita murder rate was a lot less than in most urban areas in America today! We live in an extremely violent time, and the prognosis is for more of the same.

Advocates of gun control might argue reluctantly that even if times haven't changed, technology has. Guns are not swords. Any religious or cultural arguments made for edged weapons are irrelevant in an age of semi-automatic rifles and pistols. In putting forth this idea, however, they forget several facts.

For one thing, the role of the individual weapon has remained unchanged. It ultimately does not matter if the device that deters attack on an innocent person is a knife, a battle-axe, a 9mm Browning pistol, or one of the dreaded "assault rifles." The goal is to keep the would-be mugger, rapist, or murderer at bay. Since the assailant may be equipped with modern arms, the potential victim must be likewise prepared. Secondly, from the days of King Olaf to the present, weapons in the hands of individuals have been a safeguard against tyrannical rulers. This is just as true for us as it was for the farmers who defended freedom in old Norway. However, the sharpest sword is no match for the guns of even a very third-rate army at the close of the twentieth century; logic and common sense compels free citizens to have firearms - and not muzzle loaders, either! Finally, there is precedent for declaring guns to be the spiritual equivalent of ancient blades; the Japanese acknowledged rifles as the successors to the samurai swords of old, during the Second World War.

When you take a good look at history, you see that the right to possess arms is not something that appeared miraculously in colonial America. This is a folkway with its roots lost in European prehistory, and those roots are as much spiritual as they are governmental. Ultimately, bearing arms is a religious right, and thus cannot be abrogated by any state.

To make this really clear, think back to that old movie, The Vikings. In this epic, Ragnar (Ernest Borgnine) is about to be fed to the wolves. He asks for the right to die "like a Viking," with a sword in his hand, lest he not be admitted to Valhalla. Now, there's a bit of modern myth-making here; the rules for entrance to Odin's hall are not laid out nearly so exactly in any of the sources that scholars know. But the spirit of Ragnar's request remains valid. We do know that Valhalla was not for the lowly or common. The early Danish hero Biarki, speaking of Odin, says that

War springs from the nobly born; famous pedigrees are the makers of war. For the perilous deeds which chiefs attempt are not to be done by the ventures of common men...No dim and lowly race, no low-born dead, no base souls are Pluto's [Read: Odin's] prey, but he weaves the dooms of the mighty, and fills Phlegethon [Valhalla] with noble shapes.

Slaves shall never sit at Odin's table, or quaff the mead poured by valkyrie's hands. And throughout history, one trait more than any other has been the hallmark of slaves: They are forbidden weapons.

The conceit of the twentieth century is that we have done away with slavery. But make no mistake, anyone disarmed by the state is a slave, no matter how free he is to frequent the shopping malls, or how new the car that sits in his garage. I cannot speak for Odin, but I believe that no man or woman who turns in his or her gun to the government will ever look on the faces of the blest in Valhalla. Surrender your "assault rifle," and be doomed to the cold and murk of Hel's home; you have no place among heroes.

Outmoded philosophy? I think not. The nature of tyranny has not changed in a thousand years, nor has the liberty-loving heart that resists it. And I am confident that admittance standards for Valhalla have not been "dumbed down."

All of this would be theoretical if the heroic religion of the Vikings and their European cousins was extinct. But that religion, called Asatru, survives today and still speaks uncompromisingly for the spirit of our ancestors. Would-be dictators will meet the opposition of dedicated men and women who will not give up their rights in the face of either fashion or force.

As this article shows, the right to arms is far older than the American Constitution. It is planted deep in the bedrock of ancient European culture and religion. Will we let today's slave masters hew down the Teutonic oak of freedom with an axe stolen from a freeman's hands? Will we allow them to shoot it in half with guns pried from the fingers of dead heroes? Never! For we of Asatru, the bearing of arms is not just custom, not just a legal right, but a matter of the troth that binds us to our Gods. Tyrants, beware!__________________

The following case I think makes a powerful argument for looking to yourself for self-defense. Crafty=================

Witnesses said yesterday that two men who killed each other in a gun battle in Fairmount Heights on Saturday afternoon had been feuding since their pit bull dogs got in a fight several weeks ago.

Prince George's County police are investigating the killings, which took place around 4:15 p.m. in the 1300 block of Early Oaks Lane, the Chapel Oaks area. Police have not identified the men.

Neither of the men lived in the neighborhood, but they had close ties to it, according to three residents who knew them and witnessed portions of the gun fight. The residents spoke on the condition of anonymity.

According to the witnesses, the shooting began shortly after one of the men arrived in the neighborhood and traded words with the other. Neighbors who knew them said the two had had several exchanges over the past three months after their pit bulls fought. This time, though, tempers escalated and each went after guns, according to the witnesses.

TOUGH new laws on knives and swords were unveiled today in a crackdown on weapons crime in Scotland.

Justice Minister Cathy Jamieson revealed a raft of measures, including banning the purchase of non-domestic knives, except from licensed sellers, and a ban on the sale of swords.

She said she was committed to reducing violent crime and tackling the weapons-carrying culture, particularly among young men.

Knives were used in 323 - almost half - of the 667 murders in Scotland in 1998-2003.

In the same period, there were 14,463 convictions for handling an offensive weapon.

The proposed new laws are listed in a consultation paper published by Ms Jamieson today.

It would be a criminal offence for anyone to buy a non-domestic knife from an unlicensed shop, and sellers would have to record the buyer's name, address and age.

Ms Jamieson also proposed a ban on swords, with possible exceptions for those used for ceremonial, religious, sporting or cultural purposes.

The alternative would be a licensing scheme for the sale of swords, with retailers only allowed to sell them to members of approved organisations.

Ms Jamieson said: "Making it more difficult to purchase a non-domestic knife will further deter those without a legitimate reason to possess a knife.

"And it will compel the small minority of unscrupulous traders to sell non-domestic knives more responsibly.

"Alongside other measures we are taking, we believe this will contribute to a reduction in knife crime."

Ministers have already consulted, as part of the Police Bill, on doubling the maximum sentence for carrying a knife, giving the police unconditional powers of arrest when they suspect someone of carrying a knife or offensive weapon, and increasing the age for buying a non-domestic knife from 16 to 18.

Other options in today's consultation include banning the sale of samurai swords, including replicas and swords of a similar design, and licensing the purchase of swords on an individual basis.

Under this proposal, individuals would need to apply for a licence similar to a firearms permit.

The consultation defines a non-domestic knife as a knife which has a blade or sharp point and which is not designed only for domestic use, or only for use in the processing, preparation or consumption of food.

Ms Jamieson said: "Nobody living in a normal house or flat needs a sword as part of day-to-day life.

"Those with a legitimate reason for needing a non-domestic knife or sword should not, however, be put at a disadvantage by these proposals."

And yet Democrats do believe in gun control, even though playground gunshot injuries are a proven vote-getter. This is because Democrats believe that gun owners want to keep their guns mostly in case they need to shoot Democrats. It happened in 1861 and it could happen again.? PJ O?Rourke

Let us spray . . . it's the way to deal with these violent punksRobbie Millen

?SPRAY TO disable to protect.? Now that?s a motto to live by. The police have a spanking new slogan for the war on terror ? ?shoot to kill to protect? ? so why can?t we civvies in the war on hoodies have one too?

?Spray to disable to protect? swam into my mind as I watched the Fantastic Four battle against villainy because a fight broke out in the cinema. A huge man with dread-inducing dreadlocks was raining punches down on a man who had had the temerity to tell him to stop talking.

Naturally, everyone turned into a superhero: ?Pow! I am Mighty Englishman, be amazed by my awesome selective deafness and tunnel vision. With the power of my mind I don?t see or hear anything unpleasant. Marvel at my hyper-inactivity Wooosh!?

The fight fizzled out when the aggressor?s posse of trackie-clad girlfriends dragged him away, screeching ?Michael, be the bigger man. ?E?s not worf it?. Michael then had his final flourish in front of the rabbit-like audience: ?I want ?im. Outside you t***!? (What did thugs, and their admirers, say before they learnt their lines from The Bill? Perhaps they spoke 1920s gangsterese after watching too many Al Capone movies?) And that was it, another nasty little example of the underclass creeping out from the cracks in our society. All that was left hanging in the air was that unsettling atmosphere of violence and guilt. Guilt that in an audience of strapping young men, none had the guts to intervene.

Most of us are public-spirited, want to do the right thing and prove we?re made of the right stuff. But most of us flunk it when the call for courage comes. We are rational creatures and calculate the risks. Why wade in, why resist, why make a stand when you don?t know what the aggressor is capable of and whether he has a knife or worse?

That?s the nub. The law-abiding citizen when confronted with a snarling example of criminality is at a disadvantage. One is armed, the other not. That?s why the words ?spray to disable to protect? came to mind. A burst of pepper spray in Michael?s face would have stopped his violence and been a small victory for civil society. No doubt, with our super powers we could have blanked his cries of agony and enjoyed the rest of the movie But carrying CS gas canisters, or Mace teargas, or pepper spray, is against the law. A woman with a self-defence spray in her handbag is deemed to be carrying an offensive weapon. This is a nonsense.

We have a moral right to defend our life, liberty and property. We also have a legal right to self-defence so long as we use ?reasonable force?. But the law makes it impossible for people to make sensible preparations for their own protection on the streets.

Pepper spray, for example, causes no permanent damage; surely then it should be ?reasonable force? to use it in self-defence? It is an irritant that causes severe pain when it makes contact with the skin. It inflames the mucous membranes of the eyes, nose, throat and lungs, and it causes the eyes to swell shut, loss of balance and breathing difficulties. It is nasty, but the effects last just 30 to 45 minutes; enough time to get the help of the police, our professional law-enforcers.

It should not be beyond the wit of our lawmakers ? men who legislate on the right height for hedges and how powerful a toilet flush can be ? to give us legal grounds for such sprays: which types can be used, who can carry them, where they can be used, who can sell them and so on. If the politicians don?t feel up to the task, they could set up OffSpray.

But, I hear you say, what?s to stop criminals from using CS gas against innocent people? Nothing, but then crooks have a habit of using offensive weapons, regardless of their legal status, against blameless citizens. And misusing a spray or using it offensively could still count as a crime.

Others object that if people fight back, more incidents might escalate into violence. Instead, we should follow the Met?s advice of flight, not fight. But the result of this advice is not virtuous; it means that neighbourhoods are ceded to hoodlums, making the streets ever more vicious.

There is more wisdom on a National Rifle Association bumper sticker, that bogey figure for US liberal-lefties. It reads: ?An armed society is a polite society.? A person with malign intentions is less likely to abuse people or treat them roughly because of the simple, brute fact that they may carry a concealed weapon. The fear of righteous retaliation restrains those who have no self-restraint.

Clint Eastwood, in Dirty Harry, says: ?You?ve got to ask yourself a question: ?Do I feel lucky?? Well, do ya punk?? We must change the odds so our ?punks? don?t feel so lucky

Shortly after 2 p.m., Memphis police arrived at First Tennessee, at 1200 S. Third, and found one of the robbers shot to death, lying face down in the back seat of Evans's Lincoln Towncar.

About 20 minutes earlier, Evans was pulling up to his home in the 300 block of Edsel in South Memphis, when the two 20-something men came out from behind some hedges with guns, forced a friend of his out of the car and jumped in. Evans was in the driver's seat, one robber was in the front seat and another in the back.

Evans had just gotten off work at Hershey Foods, where he's a sanitation worker. He was wearing his uniform and a blue hairnet.

With guns pointed at Evans, the robbers told him to drive to a nearby bank to get some money. He told him he didn't bank there, but said he had an account at First Tennessee.

"If I didn't withdraw $10,000, they said they were going to kill me," he said.

As he was driving, Evans said he looked for police but didn't see any and tried to work out a plan. The bank's about two miles from his house.

He pulled up to the teller window and told the men he would need a withdrawal slip to get the money. The front-seat robber handed his 9mm pistol to the back-seat robber -- who already had a .22-caliber rifle -- and went inside to get the slip.

Evans noticed a security guard leaning against the bank's wall and mouthed to him: "Call police, I'm being robbed."

The robber, sitting directly behind the driver's seat, asked him what he said and Evans told him, "I didn't say a damn thing."

The man kept turning around nervously to look at the security guard, Evans said. That's when Evans reached under his seat and pulled out a .357 Magnum.

"When he turned around, I unloaded six rounds in him," Evans said. "He didn't have a chance."

Evans bought the gun in the parking lot of a gas station the day after he was robbed two weeks ago. He'd cleaned it up, putting baby oil in the revolver, so it'd be ready if he needed it.

Evans said he got out of the car and started to reload when the other suspect came out of the bank. "He took off running."

He tried to shoot that suspect too, but his gun wouldn't fire.

Someone inside the bank called 911. When employees heard the gunshots, the bank was immediately locked down and remained closed Tuesday, said spokesman Walter Dawson.

Late Tuesday, investigators were looking for the man who ran away and were working to identify the man who died, said Lt. Toney Armstrong.

After being questioned by police, Evans said they told him he was free to go.

Police said late Tuesday their investigation will be turned over to the Shelby County District Attorney General's Office, as a matter of routine.

Evans said he has only one regret. "I didn't kill the one that got away."

Tuesday night, his family drove up from Mississippi to be with Evans, who said he was happy to be alive.

"It's really not something to be proud of," he said. "But I'm happy it was them and not me."

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (BATFE), who seem to go out of their way to alienate gun owners with their heavy-handedness, behaved in a shameful manner this last weekend at the Showmasters' gun show in Richmond.

I had reports from members of police going to their houses while the member was waiting for their approval to purchase a gun at the show! The police asked the spouse and other family members questions about the purchases and filled in a survey! "Did you know your husband was going to a gun show today?" "Did you know your husband was going to buy a gun today?" and many other such questions.

If no one was home at the gun purchaser's house, the police went to the neighbors! "Did you know that your neighbor was buying a gun today? How do you feel about him doing so?"

One member, who was carrying a personal gun to sell, was approached by BATFE and taken to a car while they checked him out. The officer said in front of Showmasters' management, "Did you know you need a business license to sell a gun at this show? I have seen you at a lot of shows - are you in the business of selling guns? I think you are." That's called a fishing expedition and intimidation. In the end they let the VCDL member go because their fish hooks came up empty.

They had over 17 BATFE agents at that show. Richmond and Henrico had a large number of officers running to the homes of anyone purchasing a handgun to ask questions.

I guess Mayor Wilder is flush with cash all of a sudden. Too bad he didn't use that money to put all those cops into the rougher neighborhoods of Richmond, instead of harassing the decent citizens who buy guns at a gun show.

And, if you are sitting down, the main BATFE agent at the show told Showmasters' management that Richmond was going to be the model for this kind of behavior across the nation!!!

BUT, THERE IS GOOD NEWS.

Steve Elliott, who heads up C&E Gun Shows and is affiliated with Showmasters, along with Annette Gelles, who heads up Showmasters, went to Washington with some lawyers to get this straightened out on Monday. (BTW, Steve told me that he has spent in excess of $10,000 this year on legal fees fighting this kind of abuse.)

Steve and Annette were told by the BATFE in DC that BATFE would no longer be sending officers to people's houses who were purchasing a firearm and that what happened in Richmond should not have happened.

We will be watching carefully to see if BATFE keeps its word or not. Report any such abuse immediately to VCDL, along with the officer's name, badge number, and department.

*************************************************************************** VA-ALERT is a project of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc. (VCDL). VCDL is an all-volunteer, non-partisan grassroots organization dedicated to defending the human rights of all Virginians. The membership considers the Right to Keep and Bear Arms to be an essential human right.

If you have a problem, it's often easier to blame someone else rather than deal with it. And with Canada's murder rate rising 12 percent last year and a recent rash of murders by gangs in Toronto and other cities, it's understandable that Canadian politicians want a scapegoat. That at least was the strategy Canada's premiers took when they met last Thursday with the new U.S. ambassador to Canada, David Wilkins, and spent much of their time blaming their crime problems on guns smuggled in from the United States.

Of course, there is a minor problem with the attacks on the U.S. Canadians really don't know what the facts are, and the reason is simple: Despite billions of dollars spent on the Canada's gun-registration program and the program's inability to solve crime, the government does not how many crime-guns were seized in Canada, let alone where those guns came from. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police reported in late July that they "cannot know if [the guns] were traceable or where they might have been traced." Thus, even if smuggled guns were an important problem, the Canadian government doesn't know if it is worse now than in the past.

Even in Toronto, which keeps loose track of these numbers, Paul Culver, a senior Toronto Crown Attorney, claims that guns from the U.S. are a "small part" of the problem.

There is another more serious difficulty: You don't have to live next to the United States to see how hard it is to stop criminals from getting guns. The easy part is getting law-abiding citizens to disarm; the hard part is getting the guns from criminals. Drug gangs that are firing guns in places like Toronto seem to have little trouble getting the drugs that they sell and it should not be surprising that they can get the weapons they need as well.

The experiences in the U.K. and Australia, two island nations whose borders are much easier to monitor, should also give Canadian gun controllers some pause. The British government banned handguns in 1997 but recently reported that gun crime in England and Wales nearly doubled in the four years from 1998-99 to 2002-03.

Crime was not supposed to rise after handguns were banned. Yet, since 1996 the serious-violent-crime rate has soared by 69 percent; robbery is up 45 percent, and murders up 54 percent. Before the law, armed robberies had fallen 50 percent from 1993 to 1997, but as soon as handguns were banned the robbery rate shot back up, almost to its 1993 level.

The 2000 International Crime Victimization Survey, the last survey completed, shows the violent-crime rate in England and Wales was twice the rate of that in the U.S. When the new survey for 2004 comes out later this year, that gap will undoubtedly have widened even further as crimes reported to British police have since soared by 35 percent, while those in the U.S. have declined 6 percent.

Australia has also seen its violent-crime rates soar immediately after its 1996 Port Arthur gun-control measures. Violent crime rates averaged 32-percent higher in the six years after the law was passed (from 1997 to 2002) than they did in 1995. The same comparisons for armed-robbery rates showed increases of 74 percent.

During the 1990s, just as Britain and Australia were more severely regulating guns, the U.S. was greatly liberalizing individuals' abilities to carry firearms. Thirty seven of the fifty states now have so-called right-to-carry laws that let law-abiding adults carry concealed handguns after passing a criminal background check and paying a fee. Only half the states require some training, usually around three to five hours. Yet crime has fallen even faster in these states than the national average. Overall, the states in the U.S. that have experienced the fastest growth rates in gun ownership during the 1990s have experienced the biggest drops in murders and other violent crimes.

Many things affect crime: The rise of drug-gang violence in Canada and Britain is an important part of the story, just as it has long been important in explaining the U.S.'s rates. (Few Canadians appreciate that 70 percent of American murders take place in just 3.5 percent of our counties, and that a large percentage of those are drug-gang related.) Just as these gangs can smuggle drugs into the country, they can smuggle in weapons to defend their turf.

With Canada's reported violent-crime rate of 963 per 100,000 in 2003, a rate about twice the U.S.'s (which is 475), Canada's politicians are understandably nervous.

While it is always easier to blame another for your problems, the solution to crime is often homegrown.

? John Lott, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of More Guns, Less Crime (University of Chicago Press, 2000) and The Bias Against Guns" (Regnery 2003).

How often do Americans use guns for defensive purposesLarry Elder September 1, 2005

Forty-six-year-old Joyce Cordoba stood behind the deli counter while working at a Wal-Mart in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Suddenly, her ex-husband -- against whom Ms. Cordoba had a restraining order -- showed up, jumped over the deli counter, and began stabbing Ms. Cordoba. Due Moore, a 72-year-old Wal-Mart customer, witnessed the violent attack. Moore, legally permitted to carry a concealed weapon, pulled out his gun, and shot and killed the ex-husband. Ms. Cordoba survived the brutal attack and is recovering from her wounds.

This raises a question. How often do Americans use guns for defensive purposes? We know that in 2003, 12,548 people died through non-suicide gun violence, including homicides, accidents and cases of undetermined intent.

UCLA professor emeritus James Q. Wilson, a respected expert on crime, police practices and guns, says, "We know from Census Bureau surveys that something beyond a hundred thousand uses of guns for self-defense occur every year. We know from smaller surveys of a commercial nature that the number may be as high as two-and-a-half or three million. We don't know what the right number is, but whatever the right number is, it's not a trivial number."

Criminologist and researcher Gary Kleck, using his own commissioned phone surveys and number extrapolation, estimates that 2.5 million Americans use guns for defensive purposes each year. He further found that of those who had used guns defensively, one in six believed someone would have been dead if they had not resorted to their defensive use of firearms. That corresponds to approximately 400,000 of Kleck's estimated 2.5 million defensive gun uses. Kleck points out that if only one-tenth of the people were right about saving a life, the number of people saved annually by guns would still be at least 40,000.

The Department of Justice's own National Institute of Justice (NIJ) study titled "Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms," estimated that 1.5 million Americans use guns for defensive purposes every year. Although the government's figure estimated a million fewer people defensively using guns, the NIJ called their figure "directly comparable" to Kleck's, noting that "it is statistically plausible that the difference is due to sampling error." Furthermore, the NIJ reported that half of their respondents who said they used a gun defensively also admitted having done so multiple times a year -- making the number of estimated uses of self-defense with a gun 4.7 million times annually.

Former assistant district attorney and firearms expert David Kopel writes, ". . . [W]hen a robbery victim does not defend himself, the robber succeeds 88 percent of the time, and the victim is injured 25 percent of the time. When a victim resists with a gun, the robbery success rate falls to 30 percent, and the victim injury rate falls to 17 percent. No other response to a robbery -- from drawing a knife to shouting for help to fleeing -- produces such low rates of victim injury and robbery success."

What do "gun control activists" say?

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence's website displays this oft-quoted "fact": "The risk of homicide in the home is three times greater in households with guns." Their web site fails to mention that Dr. Arthur Kellermann, the "expert" who came up with that figure, later backpedaled after others discredited his studies for failing to follow standard scientific procedures. According to The Wall Street Journal, Dr. Kellermann now concedes, "A gun can be used to scare away an intruder without a shot being fired," admitting that he failed to include such events in his original study. "Simply keeping a gun in the home," Kellermann says, "may deter some criminals who fear confronting an armed homeowner." He adds, "It is possible that reverse causation accounted for some of the association we observed between gun ownership and homicide -- i.e., in a limited number of cases, people may have acquired a gun in response to a specific threat."

"More Guns, Less Crime" author John Lott points out that, in general, our mainstream media fails to inform the public about defensive uses of guns. "Hardly a day seems to go by," writes Lott, "without national news coverage of yet another shooting. Yet when was the last time you heard a story on the national evening news about a citizen saving a life with a gun? . . . An innocent person's murder is more newsworthy than when a victim brandishes a gun and an attacker runs away with no crime committed. . . . ad events provide emotionally gripping pictures. Yet covering only the bad events creates the impression that guns only cost lives."

Americans, in part due to mainstream media's anti-gun bias, dramatically underestimate the defensive uses of guns. Some, after using a gun for self-defense, fear that the police may charge them for violating some law or ordinance about firearm possession and use. So many Americans simply do not tell the authorities.

A gunned-down bleeding guy creates news. A man who spared his family by brandishing a handgun, well, that's just water-cooler chat.

I think it's too soon to say anything definitive--not much info is getting out of the areas most likely to have a shredded social contract. My guess is that privately held firearms are being used far more frequently as defensive tools rather than in a criminal context, much as it stands in "normal" contexts.

With that said, I'm noticing that the MSM usually speaks in pejorative terms of anyone seen sporting a firearm in anything other than an official capacity. It seems like the only labels they are able to apply in these situations is "victim" or "vigilante," with no armed citizens protecting their lives, family, and property allowed. It will be interesting to see what stories emerge well after the fact.

Canoe and a gun get duo to safetyBy Stephen DeFerrari as told to Jessica FargenFriday, September 2, 2005 - Updated: 11:23 AM EST

Stephen DeFerrari, a Dedham native whose sister-in-law lives in Hanover, and his wife, Pam, escaped from their New Orleans home yesterday, brandishing a shotgun, in a canoe with their seven cats. Stephen spoke to the Herald last night after they arrived at a Baton Rouge hotel.

It was so dark last night. Pitch black. That was the scary part.

I was standing on the front porch with a shotgun keeping an eye on things. I could hear people breaking into houses right around the corner. We knew. We knew we had to get out. There was no police presence. The people are just going crazy. There doesn't seem to be any authority at all.

It took a canoe trip of about an hour and a mile long. It started to rain. More water. Just the thing we didn't need. It kind of felt good because we were so hot, so filthy. It felt good to have cool, clean water.

We had to make two trips in the canoe to get the cats and the dogs and the people we were with to get to higher ground. We saw fires and looting going on. If we didn't keep on moving and stay away from some people I feel like we would have been in trouble.

Earlier today, a man came up to me. I think he wanted the canoe. He saw I was armed and gave up.

We happened to pass this mall and people were looting it.

People told us the police went in there so they started shooting at the police. So the police left. They (looters) just set the place on fire. We saw it burning and we saw the fire department not even going near the place because the looters were going nuts.

We made it to dry land. We got into an Explorer rented by one of our friend's daughters. There weren't too many people on the roads in the beginning. As we got closer to Baton Rouge there started to be more people. There are people with their bags, looking lost. It's so eerie and strange. People are just lost. I guess most of them probably lost everything they got.

We are lucky, very lucky. Our house didn't get destroyed. We are still alive. The first thing my wife did after she and her sisters hugged and cried at the hotel, she took a shower. I'm about to do the same.

Wow, the New York Times portraying armed citizens in a positive light, and I lived to see it.

Police and Owners Begin to Challenge Looters

By FELICITY BARRINGER and JERE LONGMANPublished: September 1, 2005

NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 31 - In a city shut down for business, the Rite Aid at Oak and South Carrollton was wide open on Wednesday. Someone had stolen a forklift, driven it four blocks, peeled up the security gate and smashed through the front door.

Louisiana State Police officers ride toward the French Quarter in New Orleans. One officer described an atmosphere of "nervous energy."The young and the old walked in empty-handed and walked out with armfuls of candy, sunglasses, notebooks, soda and whatever else they could need or find. No one tried to stop them.

Across New Orleans, the rule of law, like the city's levees, could not hold out after Hurricane Katrina. The desperate and the opportunistic took advantage of an overwhelmed police force and helped themselves to anything that could be carried, wheeled or floated away, including food, water, shoes, television sets, sporting goods and firearms.

Many people with property brought out their own shotguns and sidearms. Many without brought out shopping carts. The two groups have moved warily in and out of each other's paths for the last three days, and the rising danger has kept even some rescue efforts from proceeding.

Because the New Orleans police were preoccupied with search and rescue missions, sheriff's deputies and state police from around Louisiana began to patrol the city, some holding rifles as they rolled through the streets in an armored vehicle.

But on Wednesday night, the mayor ordered about 1,500 city police officers, nearly the entire force, back to their traditional roles.

The looters "are starting to get closer to heavily populated areas," Mayor C. Ray Nagin told The Associated Press, "hotels, hospitals, and we're going to stop it right now."

Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said she was "furious" about the looting.

"What angers me the most is disasters tend to bring out the best in everybody, and that's what we expected to see," Ms. Blanco said at a news conference. "Instead, it brought out the worst."

All sizes and types of stores, from Wal-Mart to the Rite Aid to the St. Vincent de Paul thrift shop, turned into bazaars of free merchandise.

Some frightened homeowners took security into their own hands.

John Carolan was sitting on his porch in the thick, humid darkness just before midnight Tuesday when three or four young men, one with a knife and another with a machete, stopped in front of his fence and pointed to the generator humming in the front yard, he said.

One said, "We want that generator," he recalled.

"I fired a couple of rounds over their heads with a .357 Magnum," Mr. Carolan recounted Wednesday. "They scattered."

He smiled and added, "You've heard of law west of the Pecos. This is law west of Canal Street."

Though no one excused the stealing, many officials were careful not to depict every looter as a petty thief.

"Had New York been closed off on 9/11, who can say what they would have done?" said Cynthia Hedge-Morrell, vice president of the New Orleans City Council. "When there's no food, no water, no sanitation, who can say what you'd do? People were trying to protect their children. I don't condone lawlessness, but this doesn't represent the generous people of New Orleans."

One woman outside a Sav-a-Center on Tchoupitoulas Street was loading food, soda, water, bread, peanut butter and canned food into the trunk of a gray Oldsmobile.

"Yes, in a sense it's wrong, but survival is the name of the game," said the woman, who would not identify herself. "I've got six grandchildren. We didn't know this was going to happen. The water is off. We're trying to get supplies we need."

Jimmy Field, one of the state's five public service commissioners, said supply and repair trucks were being slowed down by people looking for food and water. Some would not go on without police escorts.

"Right now we're hoping for more federal assistance to get the level of civil disturbance down," Mr. Field said.

One police officer was shot Tuesday trying to stop looting, but he was expected to survive.

An emergency medical vehicle that was taking a Baton Rouge police officer who had been shot last month from a hospital back to his hometown was shot at on the way out of New Orleans on Tuesday.

East Baton Rouge Parish officials agreed to send 20 buses with special weapons and tactics officers to help evacuate New Orleanians, but only if a state trooper was also placed on each bus. The plan was scuttled.

"I told them I don't mind committing drivers and vehicles, but I wasn't going to put our people in harm's way," said Walter Monsour, the chief administrative officer of the parish.

Besides the strain of having to rescue survivors, the police are bereft of much of their equipment, buildings and essential communications. The Police Department was scheduled to receive new radios on Wednesday night to coordinate its activities, said Lt. Col. Mark S. Oxley, a spokesman for the state police.

Charles C. Foti Jr., the Louisiana attorney general, said a temporary detention center and courthouse would be established somewhere outside New Orleans. "We will be ready to accept you in our system, and teach you about rules and order," Mr. Foti warned looters.

On Tuesday, the state police sent in 200 troopers trained in riot control, said Lt. Lawrence J. McLeary, a spokesman for the state police.

He said that the "nervous energy" in New Orleans reminded him of the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. "I've never seen anything like that in Louisiana," Lieutenant McLeary said.

With no officers in sight, people carried empty bags, shopping carts and backpacks through the door of the Rite Aid on Wednesday and left with them full. The forklift was still in the doorway. As they came and went, the looters nodded companionably to one another.

Paul Cosma, 47, who owns a nearby auto shop, stood outside it along with a reporter and photographer he was taking around the neighborhood. He had pistols on both hips.

Suddenly, he stepped forward toward a trio of young men and grabbed a pair of rusty bolt cutters out of the hands of one of them. The young man pulled back, glaring.

The young man and his friends left, continuing the glare. A few minutes later, they returned and mouthed quiet oaths at Mr. Cosma, and his friend Art DePodesta, an Army veteran, who was carrying a shotgun and a pistol.

Mr. Cosma stared back, saying nothing. Between the two sides, a steady trickle of looters came and went, barely giving any of them a look.

Felicity Barringer reported from New Orleans for this article, and Jere Longman from Baton Rouge, La. Susan Saulny contributed reporting from Baton Rouge, and Joseph B. Treaster from New Orleans.

BILOXI, Miss., Sept. 4 -- Jeffrey Powell yanked the cushions off his living room sofa and arranged them on the bed of his truck. Then he got his shotgun, made himself comfortable, and spent the night in his driveway, protecting his hurricane-ravaged home and enjoying whatever breeze he could catch on a steamy night.

Powell is part of the Popps Ferry Landing neighborhood watch, a group of citizens trying to restore order and peace in their middle-class community a week after Hurricane Katrina brought her chaos.

"We're not going to have any looters out here," said Dan Shearin, 56, Powell's next-door neighbor. "We have some burly men who are sleeping outside with guns. If the looters come, we'll take care of them."

They haven't shot anyone, but they had to scare off a few groups of people they didn't know in the middle of the night, Shearin said.

As stories of violent and desperate looters have made their way across Mississippi, people in communities where law enforcement has been overwhelmed are reaching for their guns to police their streets.

In Popps Ferry Landing, many neighbors had lived near each other for years but had never spoken. The realization that their safety and homes were vulnerable and police presence was scarce brought them together quickly. The Dollar Store up the road was looted and vandalized pretty badly.

"We haven't exactly seen organized law enforcement out here," said Hugh Worden, 53, who lives on the other side of Powell. "The first day after the storm, we saw law enforcement out here. After that, there's not been much patrol. I suppose police are protecting the main streets."

Worden, a manager at Treasure Bay Casino before it was destroyed, said he has talked to everyone within three blocks of his home.

"The good thing is, now we all know each other," he said.

Popps Ferry Landing is tucked away in an enclave of western Biloxi, not far from Pass Road, the main east-west thoroughfare through town. Most of the houses here are two-story Colonials built in the early 1990s, and valued between $100,000 and $175,000. Many lost all or part of their roofs in the storm, and on some the entire front was torn away, as well. Piles of wood and aluminum siding stand in yards. So many trees are down, the road is an obstacle course.

Shearin said he did not sleep outside with a gun, but like most of his neighbors, he owns one. He has a Smith & Wesson .38.

"If I see somebody who's not supposed to be here, I'd shoot over their head," he said. "I wouldn't shoot anyone. I'm not a violent person -- not yet, anyway."

Shearin, a retired phone salesman, said he has been disappointed that police don't have the manpower to deal with looters.

"What good is the federal government?" he asked. "You've got to take care of yourself."

Sitting on his porch drinking a bottle of Aquafina, Shearin said he'd never seen as much destruction as Katrina brought.

"The terrorists couldn't do this much damage," he said.

He and his wife, Dottie, said they'd like to get out of Biloxi for a while, but they, like their neighbors, have to stay and wait for insurance claim agents to come by and assess the damage. The Shearins lost half their roof and most of their back yard, including a new hot tub.

"We are waiting on the insurance agents," Dottie Shearin said. "They have to come by and make a visual inspection."

Around the corner, Marti McKay, 30, said she and other neighbors have scattered their cars around the street to make it look as if everyone is home. It was scariest before they got their power back Saturday.

"It's nerve-racking at night around here because it's so dark," McKay said. "It's so quiet. We're used to the sound of air conditioning, and lights."

Her housemate Robin Frey helped organize some spotlights in the neighborhood powered by generators. And neighbor Oliver Fayard, 49, walked the streets with a flashlight to check on everyone.

"You didn't have a choice but to get out there and network," Frey said. "We saw some cars we didn't know that came through the neighborhood. We gave them a look to kill. We made it known these are not vacant houses."

Did anybody ever answer that question about whether Louisiana law allowed or prohibited such? I know the U.S. Supreme Court has already weighed in on several firearms cases at a national level, and the Supreme Court never took the Morton Grove, IL gun ban case, thus allowing the decision of the 7th Circuit to stand:

U.S. v. Cruikshank (1876) involved members of the Ku Klux Klan depriving black victims of their basic rights such as freedom of assembly and to bear arms. The court decided that neither the First nor Second Amendments applied to the states, but were limitations on Congress. Thus the federal government had no power to correct these violations, rather the citizens had to rely on the police power of the states for their protection from private individuals.

Presser v. Illinois (1886) ruled that the states had the right to strictly regulate private military groups and associations. It also reaffirmed the Cruikshank decision that the Second Amendment acts as a limitation upon the federal government and not the states.

QUILICI vs. VILLAGE OF MORTON GROVE (1982): None of these arguments has merit. First, appellants offer no authority, other than their own opinions, to support their arguments that Presser is no longer good law or would have been decided differently today. Indeed, the fact that the Supreme Court continues to cite Presser leads to the opposite conclusion. Second, regardless of whether appellants agree with the Presser analysis, it is the law of the land and we are bound by it. Their assertion that Presser is illogical is a policy matter for the Supreme Court to address...The Supreme Court has specifically rejected the proposition that the entire Bill of Rights applies to the states through the fourteenth amendment. Since we hold that the second amendment does not apply to the states, we need not consider the scope of its guarantee of the right to bear arms. For the sake of completeness, however, and because appellants devote a large portion of their briefs to this issue, we briefly comment on what we believe to be the scope of the second amendment. Because the second amendment is not applicable to Morton Grove and because possession of handguns by individuals is not part of the right to keep and bear arms, Ordinance No. 81-11 does not violate the second amendment.

So it seems that the legal answer lies with state law???...__________________

Waters were receding across this flood-beaten city today as police officers began confiscating weapons, including legally registered firearms, from civilians in preparation for a mass forced evacuation of the residents still living here.

No civilians in New Orleans will be allowed to carry pistols, shotguns, or other firearms, said P. Edwin Compass, the superintendent of police. "Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons," he said.

But that order apparently does not apply to the hundreds of security guards whom businesses and some wealthy individuals have hired to protect their property. The guards, who are civilians working for private security firms like Blackwater, are openly carrying M-16's and other assault rifles. Mr. Compass said he was aware of the private guards, but that the police had no plans to make them give up their weapons.

"The right of each citizen to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged, but this provision shall not prevent the passage of laws to prohibit the carrying of weapons concealed on the person."

Is there some implicit emergency exception to the right to bear arms here? On the other hand, doesn't the emergency make the right especially valuable to the rightsholders? Should it matter that the government seems willing to let "businesses and some wealthy individuals" hire to people use arms "to protect their property," but isn't willing to let less wealthy individuals use themselves and their friends and relatives to protect their property (and their bodies and their lives)?

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 8 -- Outside Kajun's Pub, between the relatively dry French Quarter and the heavily flooded Ninth Ward, bar owner JoAnn Guidos loaded up her 1991 Ford Econoline van with clothing, liquor and other necessities Thursday morning. After holding out for 10 days, Guidos and her friends were finally leaving New Orleans and heading to high ground.

The beer was still cold, thanks to a working generator, and hopes for customers were strong as the flood-ravaged city fills with thirsty soldiers and emergency workers.

Miles Smith is moved to a wheelchair after rescuers brought him to the convention center. Officials are trying to avoid force but want the city emptied of residents. (By Carol Guzy -- The Washington Post) GraphicPumps and LeveesEngineers are working to get five operational pump stations up to full capacity and to repair remaining breaches on two major canals.

Friday, Sept. 9, at noon ETPresident Faces Series of ChallengesWashington Post associate editor Robert G. Kaiser discusses the current issues challenging President Bush, from the Supreme Court to Hurricane Katrina to the war in Iraq.

INTERACTIVE MAP:Katrina's Aftermath in the Gulf CoastFULL COVERAGE:Latest News, Videos and More

But on Wednesday night, Guidos said, armed federal agents identifying themselves as U.S. marshals confiscated her weapons and ordered her and six friends to leave by noon Thursday.

"When you get 15 M-16s pointed at you and they line you up against the wall, it's kind of scary," said Guidos, 55.

With floodwaters continuing to recede and cleanup efforts beginning in earnest, police and the military set out on an aggressive door-to-door campaign here Thursday, urging remaining residents to leave or be removed by force.

The former Big Easy took on the air of a military encampment, as thousands of reserve and active-duty troops began patrolling the city and assisting police in search-and-rescue missions. Houses were marked with codes indicating whether any residents -- living or dead -- were found inside. Emergency workers intensified efforts to divide the city into grids in order to methodically retrieve an unknown number of corpses still in the floodwaters or entombed in ruined homes and businesses.

Although the mayor issued a forcible evacuation order, Louisiana and federal officials said they remained hopeful that most stragglers will leave voluntarily when faced with urgent warnings about dwindling supplies and hazardous floodwaters.

"We need everybody out so we can continue with the work of restoring this city," Vice Admiral Thad W. Allen, the U.S. Coast Guard chief of staff who has taken over the federal response in New Orleans, said early in the day on CBS.

P. Edwin Compass, the superintendent of police, said there are thousands of people remaining in the city but that authorities are determined to get everyone out. He said as little force as necessary would be used but that staying is not an option. Anyone with a weapon, even one legally registered, will have it confiscated, he said.

"No one will be able to be armed," Compass said. "Guns will be taken. Only law enforcement will be allowed to have guns."

The evacuation effort, however, appeared haphazard at best. Affluent areas that were not flooded, such as parts of the Garden District and Uptown, appear to be a low priority for mandatory evacuations.

In the dry neighborhood of Marigny Triangle, residents lounged in lawn chairs while listening to music blaring from "Radio Marigny," an impromptu outdoor music station. The area remained largely untouched by floodwaters, and residents say they see little reason to leave.

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Troops Escalate Urgency of EvacuationPeter and Amy Bas, who have four children ages 5 to 14, noted that they had already cleaned debris from their street. As the couple relaxed in their front yard, a Louisiana state trooper cruised by and asked if they needed diapers.

"Where are we going to go?" Peter Bas asked. "They're going to take us and put us somewhere with 5,000 other people? We're going to stay."

Miles Smith is moved to a wheelchair after rescuers brought him to the convention center. Officials are trying to avoid force but want the city emptied of residents. (By Carol Guzy -- The Washington Post) GraphicPumps and LeveesEngineers are working to get five operational pump stations up to full capacity and to repair remaining breaches on two major canals.

Friday, Sept. 9, at noon ETPresident Faces Series of ChallengesWashington Post associate editor Robert G. Kaiser discusses the current issues challenging President Bush, from the Supreme Court to Hurricane Katrina to the war in Iraq.

INTERACTIVE MAP:Katrina's Aftermath in the Gulf CoastFULL COVERAGE:Latest News, Videos and More

Amy Bas added: "It could happen, but you think you're living in America and nobody is going to make you leave your home."

Police and the National Guard were aided by hundreds of paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division, who canvassed the French Quarter and neighborhoods surrounding the convention center and Superdome.

Active-duty U.S. troops such as the 82nd Airborne lack law enforcement authority in a domestic city such as New Orleans, and therefore must avoid direct involvement in forcibly evicting people. Local police warned that they expected friction with residents as they moved forcefully to pull them out, 82nd Airborne commanders said.

The paratroopers, along with other U.S. soldiers, patrolled parts of the city section by section in boats, trucks and on foot, looking to persuade more stragglers to leave.

"Hey! Evacuation!" Sgt. Geriah McAvin, 27, of Detroit yelled toward a block of red brick apartments as his 82nd Airborne platoon rolled into a flooded housing project in two lumbering, five-ton trucks. "Hey! We're here to take you out of here."

One man on crutches waved to the passing trucks from his front stoop. But when the five-ton circled around to get him, he hesitated.

"You're not taking me to the Superdome?" asked Alfred Jones, 43.

"No Superdome!" Dennison said.

Eventually, Jones gave in, wincing and moaning in pain as the soldiers lifted him onto the truck. Jones, who lived alone, has severe arthritis in his legs and said he had survived with the help of a friend who brought him food. But his friend left a few days ago, and Jones had not eaten for at least a day and he ran out of water on Wednesday. Given his leg condition, waving down a helicopter was out of the question, he said.

With major levee breaks patched earlier this week, and a growing number of pumps sending water into nearby Lake Pontchartrain, the floodwaters appeared to be dropping quickly on Thursday. Drier conditions in many areas allowed crews to step up efforts clearing branches, lumber, bricks and other debris, piling the rubble along roadsides and trolley tracks on St. Charles Avenue and other once-picturesque boulevards.

Kimberly D. Boyd took her son to preschool Monday morning, then dropped by a bank before heading to her office in north Cobb County.

Minutes later, her routine was shattered, and sometime before 9:30 a.m. she was struggling for her life with a carjacker as her Toyota Sequoia raced south on U.S. 41. The kidnapping ended with the 30-year-old Acworth woman dead and the carjacker fatally shot by a passer-by.

Boyd died instantly when her SUV was broadsided by a cement truck, police said. Within seconds, the man driving Boyd's car was also dead ? shot by Shawn Roberts, 31, who had seen Boyd fighting the man and followed the car, police said.

"She was fighting for her life," Roberts, who lives in Acworth, told WAGA-TV.

Roberts told police he was driving north on U.S. 41 about 9:30 a.m. when he saw a man beating a woman outside the SUV, just south of the Lake Allatoona bridge. He stopped and turned around on the four-lane road to help the woman, said Cobb Police Cpl. Dana Pierce.

The carjacker pushed the woman back into the SUV and took off, with the doors still open. Roberts followed about two miles to Lake Acworth Drive, where the crash occurred, Pierce said.

As Boyd's car turned east on Lake Acworth Drive it was struck by the cement truck.

Witness Bobby Williams said the truck had just started away from a traffic light and was traveling no more than 10 mph when it hit the SUV.

Williams, owner of A2Z Auto Service at 4356 North Cobb Parkway, said he saw Roberts get out of his 2004 black Dodge Ram pickup and run toward the accident scene wearing a leather shoulder holster.

"He looked official," Williams said, explaining that he thought Roberts might be a plain-clothes police officer. "He hollered at [the carjacker], 'Stay where you are. Stay where you are.'"

The carjacker ran toward a Raceway gas station on the corner and Roberts chased him. He told police the man turned a gun toward him, and he had to do something.

"I shot and killed a man today," Roberts told WAGA-TV. "I don't feel good about it, but if I hadn't have done something somebody else would have died."

Williams said he heard at least four, perhaps five, gunshots.

"He [the carjacker] was five feet in front of me when he got hit," Williams said. "On TV, all that flailing around that goes on is not what happened. He dropped like a sack of potatoes."

Monday night Cobb police identified the dead man as Brian Clark, 25, who has family in Acworth. Police did not say whether Clark lived in the area.

No charges were filed against the cement truck driver, who was not identified.

Police questioned Roberts, who they said was not an off-duty officer, before releasing him without filing charges.

"All I can say right now is to offer my condolences of the family of the woman," Roberts said when reached at his home Monday night in Acworth. "I'm postponing any comments just for a few days," he added, saying he was acting on legal advice.

Boyd's family could not be reached Monday.

Police are still unsure where the carjacking began, Pierce said. They are tracing possible routes from Allatoona Truck Rental, the business Boyd operated on Cherokee Street in Acworth, according to public records. Police said she left her office shortly after arriving there Monday morning. The first 911 call on the crash and shooting came in about 9:30 a.m.

Police also were investigating the possibility that the carjacker's gun had been taken in a robbery, rape and carjacking in Acworth last Tuesday, said Cobb robbery squad Lt. Tom Arnold.

"We're looking into that and whether the suspect in this assault is the same as in last week's attack in Acworth," Arnold said.

Acworth police spokesman Wayne Dennard said his department also is investigating the possibility that the man killed Monday morning was the suspect in a rape last Tuesday.

In last week's attack a woman was assaulted as she left home and was forced inside, where she was beaten and raped before being forced to drive to a nearby bank to get money from an ATM, Dennard said. The woman instead ran inside the bank and her assailant drove away in her car, which was later found abandoned, he said.

Late Monday, Boyd's SUV was driven on a flatbed into the Cobb crime lab impound building next to the medical examiner's office where the bodies of Boyd and her assailant were taken, Arnold said.

Fingerprints were taken from the dead man Monday, Arnold said. Autopsies on Boyd and the man are to be conducted today. Police will compare the dead man's fingerprints and DNA to evidence recovered from last week's attack, he said.

Nick Coleman: He knows the streets and he knows troubleStar TribuneSeptember 14, 2005

A guy in a white shirt almost became a historical footnote about 4:30 last Sunday morning. He almost was the first guy to get himself shot by a candidate for mayor of Minneapolis.

"I'm in the dark, holding a gun on him and telling him to get on the ground, but he keeps backing away from me," Mark Koscielski was saying. "Then the guy points at his shirt and says, 'I have a white shirt on, and it'll get dirty if I get in the mud.' And I say, 'It's going to get red if you don't get on the [expletive] ground.' "

In the end, the guy got muddy, and he got arrested, too, charged with attempting to break into Koscielski's Guns & Ammo, at 2926 Chicago Av. S. That was just one of three attempted break-ins at the store in the past two weeks, during which time there has been a rash of burglaries near the corner of Chicago and Lake Street.

Koscielski, 51, was a distant also-ran in Tuesday's mayoral primary. His campaign to keep open his heavily secured gun shop, watched over by electronic surveillance and a pair of raucous parrots called Toto and Cleo, may be running out of ammo, too: The Minnesota Court of Appeals is scheduled next month to decide whether the city has acted illegally in trying to zone Koscielski into oblivion.

He's a political gadfly, a thorn in the side and an affably goofy gunsmith (he teaches a training course for those who want to apply for permits to carry handguns) who has been fighting to keep his gun store alive for 10 years. Despite his loss (again) at the polls, if you want to discuss the shape of Minneapolis, you can do worse than talk to Koscielski. He may never be mayor (thankfully), but he knows the streets. And he knows trouble.

For months, the area around Lake and Chicago has looked like a disaster zone: the streets torn up, with concrete barricades and debris everywhere, while work proceeds on turning the old Sears building into offices, condos and a hotel.

City planners promise upscale lofts, white-collar office workers and boutiques. Those who try to make a living on the disrupted streets, which are deserted at night, just hope to be able to see that bright future."We have tried to steel ourselves," says Mark Simon, owner of Robert's Shoes, which has suffered four break-ins in the past two weeks as thieves have used road construction debris to smash store windows and grab shoes. "Every day, it's a different brick," he says with a game smile. "But when the new developments start to open, the hope is there will be too many decent people around for the bad guys."

Koscielski scoffs at that vision, saying new sidewalks and new trash cans won't deter prostitutes and gangsters. He relies on his trusty .38- caliber Colt revolver, which he bought in 1972 at a Holiday Stationstore in the city and which he trained at the would-be burglar until the cops arrived. (Two accomplices got away, one jumping from the gun shop roof onto Koscielski's Ford Explorer, leaving a footprint on the hood not far from the "Terrorist Hunting Permit" bumper sticker.)

Following his own training advice, Koscielski, who had dialed 911, secured his weapon at the first sign of the police and raised his hands, hollering, "Help! Police!" That, he says, helps the cops tell the bad guy from the honest citizen. With all his hollering, first at the suspect, then for the cops, Koscielski lost his voice. But it came back Tuesday, even as he was losing his quixotic bid for mayor, with its cheesy campaign signs topped with blood-red words that dripped, "Stop! Murderapolis!"

"If that guy had something in his hand -- a pry bar, a screwdriver, an ice pick, anything -- he probably would have died," Koscielski says, shaking at the memory of the confrontation.

Fortunately, no one was shot, and the future for Lake and Chicago is still bright. But the guy in the white shirt might want to ponder how close he came to losing his future.

On election day, the erstwhile mayor of Minneapolis was dressed in sandals, camouflage shorts and an old T-shirt. The shirt said, "Some People Are Alive Simply Because It Is Illegal To Kill Them."

"All our operators are busy right now. Please remain on the line and an operator will be with you shortly. Your call is important to us."

Can you imagine any words more horrifying after dialing 9-1-1? Your life's in danger, but there's no one available to help you.

For several days in September, life was absolutely terrifying for many New Orleans residents who got stranded in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. There were no operators... there were no phone calls being handled.

Heck, there was no 9-1-1. Even if the phone lines had been working, there were no police officers waiting to be dispatched.

Hundreds of New Orleans police officers had fled the city. Some took their badges and threw them out the windows of their cars as they sped away. Others participated in the looting of the city.

While there were many officers who acted honorably -- even apprehending dangerous thugs while grieving the loss of their own family members -- most residents were forced to fend for themselves.

Many did so successfully, using their own firearms, until New Orleans Police Commissioner Edwin Compass III issued the order to confiscate their guns.

Anti-gun zealots confiscate firearms from law-abiding citizens

On September 8, several news outlets began reporting that officials in New Orleans were confiscating firearms... not from looters, but from law-abiding citizens who legally owned firearms!

"No one will be able to be armed," said Deputy Chief Warren Riley. "We are going to take all the weapons."

It was like a scene out of the former Soviet Union or Communist China.

The Associated Press quoted Compass, the police commissioner, as saying, "Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons."

Well, there you have it. Given the chance, gun control advocates will always implement their real agenda -- confiscation of firearms from everyone... except the police!

ABC News video on September 8 showed National Guard troops going house-to-house, smashing down doors, searching for residents, and confiscating guns. Every victim of disarmament was clearly not a thug or looter, but a decent resident wanting to defend his or her home.

Many of the troops were clearly conflicted by their orders. "It is surreal," said one member of the Oklahoma National Guard who was going door-to-door in New Orleans. "You never expect to do this in your own country."

Many never would have expected it -- confiscating firearms from decent people who were relying on those firearms to protect themselves from the looters.

It was an outrageous order -- one that should not have been obeyed. There was no constitutional authority for the directive, and it ignored the fact that many good people had already used firearms to successfully defend their lives and property.

Guns were saving lives and protecting property prior to the confiscation order

As flood waters started rising in New Orleans, a wave of violence rolled through the city.

"It was pandemonium for a couple of nights," said Charlie Hackett, a New Orleans resident. "We just felt that when [looters] got done with the stores, they?d come to the homes."

Hackett was right... which is why he and his neighbor, John Carolan, stood guard over their homes to ward off looters who, rummaging through the neighborhoods, were smashing windows and ransacking stores.

Armed looters did eventually come to Carolan's house and demanded his generator. But Carolan showed them his gun and they left.

No wonder then that gun stores, which weren't under water, were selling firearms at a record pace to people looking to defend themselves. "I've got people like you wouldn't believe, lots of people, coming in and buying handguns," said Briley Reed, the assistant manager of the E-Z Pawn store in Baton Rouge.

"I've even had soldiers coming in here buying guns," Reed said.

Makeshift militias patrol neighborhoods

In the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans, dozens of neighbors banded together to protect their neighborhood.

"There's about 20 or 30 guys in addition to us. We know all of them and where they are," Gregg Harris said. "People armed themselves so quickly, rallying together. I think it's why [our] neighborhood survived."

Harris isn't joking about the armaments. A gun battle erupted one afternoon between armed neighbors and looters. Two of the thugs were shot.

Since then, no more looters have bothered the neighborhood. But the neighbors aren't letting their guard down. They all take their turn keeping watch.

Gareth Stubbs sits in a rocking chair on his front porch, holding his shotgun and a bottle of bug spray.

In another home, a 74-year old mother keeps the following near the bed: her rosary, a shotgun and a 38-caliber pistol.

Vinnie Pervel and two other volunteers man a balcony-turned-watchtower with five borrowed shotguns, a pistol, a flare gun, and old AK-47 and loads of ammunition.

To be sure, many of the weapons were borrowed from neighbors who fled before the storm hit. Pervel and Harris did not have any working firearms themselves in the aftermath of the storm. But because Pervel had been keeping in contact (via phone) with neighbors who had already evacuated, he got permission to go into the vacant homes and get his neighbors' weapons.

"I never thought I'd be going into my neighbor's house and taking their guns," Pervel said. "We wrote down what gun came from what house so we can return them when they get back."

It would be an understatement to say that firearms were the hottest commodity in the days following the massive destruction. In Gulf Port, Mississippi, Ron Roland, 51, lost everything -- three homes, four cars, a bait-and-tackle shop and a boat. It was all destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

Nevertheless, Roland was determined to salvage what he could amidst the rubble -- with or without police protection. And it's a good thing, too, because there would be no such thing as "police protection" in the days following the storm.

Standing guard over one of his homes with a handgun in his waistband, Roland used his firearm to stop looters from rummaging through his storm-damaged property.

Roland and his son even performed a citizen's arrest on one plunderer and then warned future thieves by posting the following message in his yard: "NO TRESPASSERS! ARMED HOMEOWNERS."

Signs like this were common throughout the Gulf Coast region in the days following Katrina.

Unfortunately, some people had to learn the hard way about the utility of keeping firearms for protection.Water, food... but what about guns?

The managers at the Covenant Home nursing center in New Orleans were more than prepared to ride out the hurricane. They had food and supplies to last the 80 residents for more than ten days.

They had planned for every contingency... or so they thought.

"We had excellent plans. We had enough food for 10 days," said Peggy Hoffman, the home's Executive Director.

But they had no firearms. So when carjackers hijacked the home's bus and drove by the center shouting "Get out!" to the residents, they were completely helpless.

All of the residents, most of them in wheelchairs, were evacuated to other nursing homes in the state.

Hoffman says she has now learned her lesson.

Next time, "We'll have to equip our department heads with guns and teach them how to shoot," she said.

We should have learned this lesson more than ten years ago when the entire country saw horrifying images coming out of Los Angeles.

If the riots of 1992 taught us anything, it is that the police can't always be there to protect us.

For several days, that city was in complete turmoil as stores were looted and burned. Motorists were dragged from their cars and beaten.

Further aggravating the situation, police were very slow in responding to the crisis. Many Guardsmen, after being mobilized to the affected areas, sat by and watched the violence because their rifles were low on ammunition.

But not everybody in Los Angeles suffered. In some of the hot spots, Korean merchants were able to successfully protect their stores with semi-automatic firearms.

In areas where armed citizens banded together for self-protection, their businesses were spared while others (which were left unprotected) burned to the ground.

The pictures of Korean merchants defending their stores left quite an impression on one group of people living in Los Angeles: those who had previously identified themselves as gun control advocates.

Press reports described how life-long gun control supporters were even running to gun stores to buy an item they never thought they would need -- a gun. Tragically, they were surprised (and outraged!) to learn there was a 15-day waiting period upon firearms.

Confiscating guns puts people at risk

Fast forward more than a decade, it seems that many folks still haven't learned the lessons from previous tragedies. If the Mayor and his cronies really wanted to help the decent citizens of New Orleans, they would have been issuing people firearms instead of taking them away.

These guns were the only thing that prevented many good folks from becoming victims in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Now that residents are disarmed, will the Mayor provide 24-hour, round-the-clock protection for each of these disarmed families? Will he make himself personally liable for anyone who is injured or killed as a result of being prevented from defending himself or his family?

When your life is in danger, you don't want to rely on a police force that is stretched way too thin. And the last thing you want to hear when you call 9-1-1 is, "All our operators are busy right now...."

Perhaps a little dense, but a lot of interesting ramifications here. Sounds like the kind of issue that will eventually percolate to the top of the legal system.

Insurer Not Required to Defend Homeowner Who Shot IntruderJohn CaherNew York Law Journal09-16-2005

A man who killed an intruder in his home in self-defense is not entitled to insurance defense in a wrongful death action, a divided Albany appellate panel ruled Thursday in a case of first impression.

The split by New York's Appellate Division, 3rd Department, in Automobile Co. of Hartford v. Cook, 97160, illustrates a debate that has divided courts across the country. The question is whether a homeowner's insurance policy provides coverage when an insured is sued for wrongful death stemming from a killing in self-defense. That question was apparently addressed for the first time Thursday by a New York appellate court.

Justice John A. Lahtinen and three of his four colleagues strictly construed the insurance policy language in holding that an occurrence of justifiable homicide results from an intentional rather than accidental act. Here, the defendant shot the decedent at close range with a 12-gauge shotgun. The action thus triggers the exception for incidents that are "expected or intended" by the insured, the panel found.

But Presiding Justice Anthony V. Cardona dissented, distinguishing "defend" from "indemnify" and arguing that an insurance company has an obligation to provide a defense, at least until the point where it is determined that the allegedly wrongful death resulted from intentional rather than negligent conduct.

"The cases across the country are split right down the middle," said Albany appellate attorney Michael J. Hutter, who represented the insurance company. "But this is the first time it has ever been raised in New York. The Third Department took a very strict approach."

At the heart of the case is a money dispute between acquaintances Alfred S. Cook and Richard A. Barber. In 2002, Barber barged into Cook's home. Cook shot and killed Barber, and was charged with murder.

After an Albany County jury acquitted Cook, the Barber's estate sued for wrongful death. Then, the Automobile Insurance Co. of Hartford, which provided Cook with homeowner's insurance, sought a declaration that it had no duty to defend or indemnify.

Albany Supreme Court Justice Edward Sheridan said the insurance company had a duty to provide Cook's defense.

Thursday, the 4-1 Third Department panel reversed.

"The jury apparently concluded in the criminal case that the prosecution failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the 120-pound Cook did not have legal justification for shooting the 360-pound decedent -- who had previously attacked and injured Cook -- after he refused to leave Cook's home and approached Cook in a menacing way," Lahtinen observed. Regardless, the majority held as a matter of law that Cook's actions were not covered by the homeowner's policy.

"While he allegedly did not anticipate that the injury inflicted would result in death, the facts (and his admission) establish that he intended the result of a bodily injury," Lahtinen wrote in an opinion joined by Justices D. Bruce Crew III, Edward O. Spain and Anthony T. Kane.

In dissent, Cardona noted that "an insurer's duty to defend its insured in pending litigation is exceptionally broad and far surpasses the insurer's duty to ultimately indemnify in the event that the insured is found liable."

He said that duty should be alleviated only when "no plausible reading" of the allegations could "bring the contested events within the purview of the insurance policy at issue." Here, Cardona said, Barber's death could be viewed as an act of negligence rather than intentional conduct.

"[A]lthough it might ultimately be determined that Cook's liability to decedent's estate, if any, is based upon his intentional conduct, thereby obviating plaintiff's duty to indemnify Cook, I cannot conclude that this is the only possible outcome considering the allegations in the underlying complaint," Cardona wrote.

His reasoning follows that of state courts in West Virginia and Arizona. Courts in Michigan and Vermont have held that insurers are not obligated to defend or indemnify in self-defense cases.

Robert P. Roche of Roche, Corrigan, McCoy & Bush in Albany argued for Cook. Benjamin F. Neidl of Tabner, Ryan & Keniry appeared for the estate.

Roche said the ruling establishes a nonsensical distinction between holders of commercial policies and homeowner's policies. He said that as a result of this decision, a shopkeeper who shoots a thief is covered because he helped prevent a crime on the property. But a homeowner, Roche said, is not similarly covered.

"A commercial policy allows the holder to protect either his employees from being assault or to prevent the commission of a crime upon his property by using force up to and including deathly physical force, and he is covered," Roche said. "But a homeowner is not. Here is a man who stood trial and 12 of his peers said 'not guilty.' He acted properly and in a manner dictated by circumstances over which he had no control."

Roche said he will seek leave to appeal to the state Court of Appeals.

As was reported last week, in the wake of unspeakable crimes perpetrated by roving, armed gangs and individuals, authorities in New Orleans seized legal firearms from lawful residents, effectively disarming the very citizenry they are sworn to protect.

"What we've seen in Louisiana--the breakdown of law and order in the aftermath of disaster--is exactly the kind of situation where the Second Amendment was intended to allow citizens to protect themselves, " LaPierre said. "For state, local, or federal government to disarm these good people in their own homes using the threat of imminent deadly force, is unthinkable."

"The NRA will not stand by while guns are confiscated from law-abiding people who're trying to defend themselves," Cox said. "We're exploring every legal option available to protect the rights of lawful people in New Orleans."

To that end, NRA has put professional investigators to work on the ground in New Orleans and surrounding areas. News stories and members' detailed accounts have been followed up on, but we need more information. Some of our best leads have come from rank and file law enforcement, but we need to hear from all directly affected citizens.

If you have personally had a gun confiscated in Louisiana since Hurricane Katrina hit, please call (888) 414-6333. Be prepared to leave only your name and immediate contact information so we can get back to you. Once again, we are seeking contact information from actual victims of gun confiscation in Louisiana only.

A UNITED Nations report has labelled Scotland the most violent country in the developed world, with people three times more likely to be assaulted than in America.

England and Wales recorded the second highest number of violent assaults while Northern Ireland recorded the fewest.

The study, based on telephone interviews with victims of crime in 21 countries, found that more than 2,000 Scots were attacked every week, almost ten times the official police figures. They include non-sexual crimes of violence and serious assaults.

Violent crime has doubled in Scotland over the past 20 years and levels, per head of population, are now comparable with cities such as Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg and Tbilisi.

The attacks have been fuelled by a ?booze and blades? culture in the west of Scotland which has claimed more than 160 lives over the past five years. Since January there have been 13 murders, 145 attempted murders and 1,100 serious assaults involving knives in the west of Scotland. The problem is made worse by sectarian violence, with hospitals reporting higher admissions following Old Firm matches.

David Ritchie, an accident and emergency consultant at Glasgow?s Victoria Infirmary, said that the figures were a national disgrace. ?I am embarrassed as a Scot that we are seeing this level of violence. Politicians must do something about this problem. This is a serious public health issue. Violence is a cancer in this part of the world,? he said.

Detective Chief Superintendent John Carnochan, head of the Strathclyde Police?s violence reduction unit, said the problem was chronic and restricting access to drink and limiting the sale of knives would at least reduce the problem.

The study, by the UN?s crime research institute, found that 3 per cent of Scots had been victims of assault compared with 1.2 per cent in America and just 0.1 per cent in Japan, 0.2 per cent in Italy and 0.8 per cent in Austria. In England and Wales the figure was 2.8 per cent.

Scotland was eighth for total crime, 13th for property crime, 12th for robbery and 14th for sexual assault. New Zealand had the most property crimes and sexual assaults, while Poland had the most robberies.

Chief Constable Peter Wilson, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, questioned the figures. ?It must be near impossible to compare assault figures from one country to the next based on phone calls,? he said.

?We have been doing extensive research into violent crime in Scotland for some years now and this has shown that in the vast majority of cases, victims of violent crime are known to each other. We do accept, however, that, despite your chances of being a victim of assault being low in Scotland, a problem does exist.?

Hey Craftydog, Being one from a Scottish clan, I can tell you first hand that if you take away a Scottsman guns as they did, then he will use his knife. You take away his knife and he will beat you with a club you take that away and he'll throw rocks at you ect. When will these governments learn that it's not how many or what kinds of weapons a person has that causes violence and that the only way to stop it or reduce it is to have law abiding citizens who are capable of protecting themselves. It's pretty damn obvious the government can't protect them. If your neighbor hates you but knows your armed, he might not stop hating you but he'll think twice before doing anything to you even if he's drunk! Woof P.C.

Help support NRA's efforts in New Orleans. Click here to make a contribution.

(Fairfax, VA) - Today, the National Rifle Association (NRA) filed a motion in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana seeking a temporary restraining order to block authorities from confiscating law-abiding citizens' firearms in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

"New Orleans is the first city in the United States to forcibly disarm peaceable law-abiding citizens and it must be the last. Victims are dealing with a complete breakdown of government. At a time when 911 is non-operational and law enforcement cannot respond immediately to calls for help, people have only the Second Amendment to protect themselves, their loved ones and their property," said NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre.

"The NRA stands with law-abiding Americans, who agree that at their most vulnerable moment, their right to defend themselves and their families should not be taken away," said Chris W. Cox, NRA's chief lobbyist.

According to The New York Times, the New Orleans superintendent of police directed that no civilians in New Orleans will be allowed to have guns and that "only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons." ABC News quoted New Orleans' deputy police chief, saying, "No one will be able to be armed. We are going to take all the weapons."

"The NRA is determined to stop this blatant abuse of power by local politicians. It is disgraceful that any government official would further endanger the lives of innocent victims by issuing this ridiculous order. We are very grateful to the many rank and file police officers who have come forward and assisted NRA in exposing these violations of constitutional freedoms. We are also pleased that the Second Amendment Foundation is joining us in this effort," added Cox.

"The actions of the New Orleans government have destroyed the one levee that stands between law-abiding citizens and anarchy - the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. The NRA will not rest until this injustice is resolved," concluded LaPierre.

--nra--

Established in 1871, the National Rifle Association is America's oldest civil rights and sportsmen's group. Four million members strong, NRA continues its mission to uphold Second Amendment rights and to advocate enforcement of existing laws against violent offenders to reduce crime. The Association remains the nation's leader in firearm education and training for law-abiding gun owners, law enforcement and the armed services.

(Fairfax, VA) -- The United States District Court for the Eastern District in Louisiana today sided with the National Rifle Association (NRA) and issued a restraining order to bar further gun confiscations from peaceable and law-abiding victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

?This is a significant victory for freedom and for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. The court?s ruling is instant relief for the victims who now have an effective means of defending themselves from the robbers and rapists that seek to further exploit the remnants of their shattered lives,? said NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre.

Joining LaPierre in hailing the U.S. District Court decision was NRA chief lobbyist Chris W. Cox. ?This is an important victory. But the battle is not over. The NRA will remedy state emergency statutes in all 50 states, if needed, to ensure that this injustice does not happen again."

The controversy erupted when The New York Times reported, the New Orleans superintendent of police directed that no civilians in New Orleans will be allowed to have guns and that ?only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons.? ABC News quoted New Orleans? deputy police chief, saying, ?No one will be able to be armed. We are going to take all the weapons.?

The NRA also pledged that it will continue its work to ensure that every single firearm arbitrarily and unlawfully seized under this directive is returned to the rightful law-abiding owner.

Hey Guys, The afternoon before Rita hit, Fox New's John Gibson ran a segment on Texas gun laws. During this segment he called laws that allowed homeowners to use deadly force to protect themselves and family, draconian. He further warn everyone evacuating to watchout for gun toteing citizens who would shoot them on sight. This was a blatant attack on law-abideing citizens right to keep and bear arms as well as an attack on a persons right to self-defense. He missed a chance to warn looters, rapist and murders not to take advantage of the storm, just to take a swipe at gun owners. I have asked everyone I know to e-mail Mr. Gibson at myword@foxnews.com and him what they think about his comments. Keep it clean, and no threats O.K. We need to start responding to these attacks on our rights. Otherwise we won't have them for much longer. Woof P.C.

Police arrested a suspected burglar on Thursday after the 21year-old man sought treatment for gunshot wounds officials believe occurred when a resident heard noises in his garage and fired at an intruder.

Daniel Dunn, 50, told police it was just before 6 a.m. Thursday that he heard a noise in the garage of his home in the 2200 block of Gershwin Lane. Dunn told police he found a young man in his garage who began swinging a knife at him, cutting Dunn across the neck and a hand. Dunn said that after he was cut, he ran in his house and grabbed a .22caliber rifle and fired at the intruder.

Dunn told police he started screaming for help as the intruder ran, following him for as long as Dunn could. Dunn was taken to Bay Area Medical Center where he received stitches.

Police discovered the suspect after officials at Christus Spohn Hospital Memorial notified them of a gunshot victim.

Police said the 21-year-old suspect has bullet wounds in one of his legs, his arm and his pelvis.

The suspect, who hasn't seen a magistrate judge, was placed under guard at the hospital after officers learned he had unrelated warrants for his arrest.

Actually the fighting for American Revolution started when the British went to Concord to take control of the powder. The liberal biased history books sort of overlook this little fact. Those men risked their lives defending their powder. The British would allow them to have guns, just not the powder. Sound like a slick Willy move to me. The Colonials stood their ground and won. Actually in New England, the Brits wouldn't engage out of range of their naval guns because they always lost. Fighting in the woods was a very expensive proposition for them.

Subject: Gun Refresher Course

GUN REFRESHER COURSEA.. An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a victim.B.. A gun in the hand is better than a cop on the phone.C.. Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface.D.. Gun control is not about guns; it's about control.E.. If guns are outlawed, can we use swords?F.. If guns cause crime, then pencils cause misspelled words.G.. Free men do not ask permission to bear arms.H.. If you don't know your rights you don't have any.I... Those who trade liberty for security have neither.J.. The United States Constitution (c) 1791. All Rights Reserved.K.. What part of "shall not be infringed" do you not understand?L. .The Second Amendment is in place in case they ignore the others.M.. 64,999,987 firearms owners killed no one yesterday.N.. Guns only have two enemies: Rust and Politicians.O.. Know guns, know peace and safety. No guns, no peace nor safety.P.. You don't shoot to kill; you shoot to stay alive.Q.. 911 - government sponsored Dial a Prayer.R.. Assault is a behavior, not a device.S.. Criminals love gun control - it makes their jobs safer.T.. If Guns cause Crime, then Matches cause Arson.U.. A government that's afraid of it's citizens tries to control them.V. You only have the rights you are willing to fight for.W.. Enforce the "gun control laws" in place, don't make more.X ..If you remove the people's right to bear arms, you create slaves.Y.. The American Revolution wouldn't have happened with Gun Control.Z. ."...a government by the people, for the people..."

PLEASE PASS THIS 'REFRESHER' ON TO OTHERFREE CITIZENS BEFORE WE LOOSE OUR FREEDOM

Something else that liberal/socialist/anti-constitution/anti-American/ anti-gun control freaks overlook is the fact that every time the word "People" is used in the admendments, it is always referring to individual citizens. I would like to point out that the second admendment reads: the right of the "people" to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The rest of the admendment was to confirm that not only was it nessasary for the individual to be armed for his own protection but that it was a national need as well. WOOF P.C.

In my last post I intentionally left out a comma between anti-gun and control freaks. In context it would read , anti-gun, control freaks. Anyone paying attention to context woud have corrected the missing comma in their mind. The reason I did this is because in the second admendment between the word militia and the right of the people is a comma. Even if this comma was missing anyone who was paying attention to context would still be able to tell the writer was talking about two different ideas. One about an individual right and the other about how this right is also important to maintain a strong militia. Even with the comma in it's proper place the gun-control folks still ignore the context. WoofP.C.

Please note: the article as posted at nationalreview.com is heavily annotated, with much of the text linking to primary sources.

October 20, 2005, 9:13 a.m.Suiting DownCongress guns for fairness?

By John R. Lott Jr. & Jack Soltysik

Almost all products have illegitimate uses and undesirable consequences. In 2002, 45,380 people died in car accidents, 838 children drowned, 474 children died in house fires, and 130 children died in bicycle accidents. Luckily, local governments haven't started recouping medical costs or police salaries by suing car manufacturers, pool builders, makers of home heaters, or bike companies.

Many items, including cars and computers, are also used in the commission of crimes. But again, no one seriously proposes that these companies be held liable.

People understand that what makes a car useful for getting to work also makes it useful for escaping a crime. They also understand that the penalty should be on the person who uses the product for ill.

This logic is ignored when cities sue gun makers for costs incurred from improper firearm use, and the House of Representatives looks poised to end the practice today. Multibillionaire George Soros, via the Brady Campaign, has funded most of these suits. Last year the "Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act," to rein in these suits, was defeated when Democrats added amendments to extend the so-called assault-weapons ban.

Generally, with the exception of some short-term victories, suits against gun makers haven't had any more legally success than if similar suits had been brought against car companies. The legislation would limit civil suits to cases where the sellers or manufacturer has broken any law. In practice, this will make the selling of guns similar to other products. Car dealers are not sued simply because their cars are used in a crime, but they can be if they knowingly provide a car to facilitate a crime.

While gun-control advocates can dream about more such victories, the Brady Campaign had more practical goals: imposing large legal costs on gun makers. Even the largest gun companies make only a few million dollars in a good year. Those below the top ten make just a few thousand guns a year and are usually family operations.

The Bad and the GoodObviously, bad things happen with guns. But the suits ignore that guns also prevent bad things by making it easier for victims to defend themselves. Unlike the tobacco suits, gun makers have powerful arguments about the benefits of gun ownership.More than 450,000 crimes, including 10,800 murders, were committed with guns in 2002. But Americans also used guns defensively more than two million times that year, and more than 90 percent of the time merely brandishing the weapon was sufficient to stop an attack.

Police are important in reducing crime rates, but they virtually always arrive after a crime has been committed. When criminals confront people, resistance with a gun is by far the safest course of action. A 2004 survey found that 94 percent of 22,600 chiefs and sheriffs questioned thought that law-abiding citizens should be able to buy guns for self-defense.

John Lott's own research has shown Increased gun-ownership rates are associated with lower crime rates. Poor people in the highest crime areas benefit the most from owning guns. Lawsuits against gun makers will raise the price of firearms, which will most severely reduce gun ownership among the law-abiding, much-victimized poor.

Advocates for these suits claim that the gun makers make their weapons attractive to criminals through low price, easy concealability, corrosion resistance, accurate firing and high firepower. Lightweight, concealable guns may help criminals, but they also have helped protect law-abiding citizens and lower crime rates in the 46 states that to varying degrees allow concealed handguns.

Women benefit most and also find it easier to use smaller, lightweight guns. Poor victims benefit more than wealthier ones from the ability to protect themselves simply because they are more likely to be victims.

Some suits have sought to hold gun makers liable because accidental deaths are "foreseeable" and not enough was done to make guns safe. Nationally, the Centers for Disease Control shows that 26 children under 10 and 60 under 15 died from accidental gun deaths in 2002. Yet with 90 some million people owning more than 260 million guns, accidental deaths from guns are far less "foreseeable" than from many other products. Most gun owners must be very responsible or such gun accidents would be much more frequent.

Data collected from doing a Nexis search on all accidental gun shot cases for children under age ten show that accidental shooters overwhelmingly are adults with long histories of arrests for violent crimes, alcoholism, suspended or revoked driver's licenses, and involvement in car crashes. Meanwhile, the annual number of accidental gun deaths involving children under ten ? most of these being cases where someone older shoots the child ? is consistently a single digit number. It is a kind of media archetype story to report on "naturally curious" children shooting themselves or other children ? though in the five years from 1997 to 2001 the entire United States averaged only ten cases a year where a child under ten accidentally shot himself or another child.

In contrast, in 2001 bicycles were much more likely to result in accidental deaths than guns. Ninety-three children under the age of ten drowned accidentally in bathtubs.

And, Yet, Still...Yet, despite all this the vote might in the House might depend on requirements on a Senate provision that required gunlocks to be included with any guns sold. As mentioned, the number of accidental gun deaths are many fewer than most suspect, but the real problem is that convincing people to lock up guns actually leads to more deaths. When people lock up their guns, they are less able to defend themselves from criminal attacks and criminals become more emboldened to attack people in their homes. Providing gunlocks with guns is just one additional way to exaggerate in people's minds the risk of owning guns in the home. Including this provision may be the political price to pass the legislation, but it distracts from the overall benefits of the bill.Attempts to have the court system ignore a product's benefits to society are bad enough. Even worse is the cynical attempt to file bogus lawsuits simply to impose massive legal costs to eventually try bankrupting legitimate companies.

Passing the "Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act" today would still allow suits but would put gun makers on the same legal footing as other American manufacturers.

? John Lott, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of More Guns, Less Crime and The Bias Against Guns. Soltysik was an AEI summer intern and is currently a student at the University of Missouri.

The British government banned handguns in 1997 to put an end to gun related crimes. The UK now reports that gun crime nearly doubled in the four years from 1998-99 to 2002-03. The serious violent crime rate has soared 69%, robbery is up 45% and murders up 54%. Before the ban from 1993 to 1997 armed robberies had fallen 50% but since the ban the rate has shot back up to pre 1993 levels. Austaralia has had its crime rate soar immediately after its 1996 gun control measures were enacted. Violent crime averaged 32 percent higher and armed robbery rates increased 74% in the six years since the bans. Canada also has seen growing crime rates after its gun bans were enacted. Canada had a crime rate of 963 per 100,000 in 2003; a rate twice that of the U.S. As Britain and other countries were putting limits on gun ownership the U.S. was greatly liberalizing the right of citizens to carry concealed handguns. Thirty-eight states have right to carry laws in place. Crime has fallen faster in these states than the national average. Yes, the U.S. still has gun crimes, but 70% of American murders take place in just 3.5% of our states counties and most were gang and drug related. San Fran. don't go down that road of gun bans. TAKEN IN PART: From a commentary by John R Lott in the NRA journal America's Freedom 1ST Nov issue WOOF P.C.

If he has not done so already, President George W. Bush will soon sign a bill which passed the Senate in July and the House last week. It shields gun makers and sellers from lawsuits that might arise from misuse of their weapons, and it could produce an honest discussion of guns in America.

The new federal law does not protect gun makers from ordinary product-liability litigation. That is, if the industry still produced revolvers like one my father once owned but never used - one he described as "kill behind and maim in front" because the cylinder would not align properly with the barrel so that lead sprayed every which way when it was fired - then the maker could still be sued for making a defective product.

But if some thug acquires a firearm and commits murder and mayhem, then under the new law, the gun industry is immune to litigation from the victims. They can sue the shooter, but not the gun maker or seller, so long as they were obeying the law in the production and distribution of the weapon.

On the surface, this seems quite fair. We have a Second Amendment to the federal constitution, which guarantees the right of the people "to keep and bear arms." That right would be rather meaningless if gun and ammunition makers were put out of business by product liability lawsuits.

If people want to agitate for repeal of the Second Amendment by electing senators and representatives and state legislators who will appropriately amend the federal constitution, that's their right. But it should be done as an open political process, not in a sneaky way through product-liability litigation.

Further, we don't hold knife makers liable in stabbings, or hammer makers liable in gruesome clubbings. I've followed many libel suits, and was hit by one in 1980 (it was dismissed before trial by the district court, but the plaintiff appealed the dismissals up the ladder clear to the U.S. Supreme Court), but never have I seen the company that manufactured the typesetting machinery or printing press named among the defendants.

Every year, land-management agencies like the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management cite hundreds of drivers for taking their vehicles off the designated routes and onto fragile tundra and wetlands. But they don't go after the makers of four-wheel-drive vehicles, even though that sort of anti-social destruction is often encouraged by their commercials.

We generally assume that tools and technology are morally neutral, and that we humans are responsible for how we use them. The same tool I use for the happy task of opening envelopes with checks in them could also be used to stab someone in the heart - it's what I do with it, not the tool itself, which matters.

But this doesn't fully hold all the time, at least before the U.S. Supreme Court. In its ruling on the Grokster case last summer, the court held that a technology company can be held responsible for illegal acts committed, not by the company, but by users of the software.

At issue were computer programs which made file-sharing fast and simple. The court found that the software companies - Grokster and StreamCast Networks - encouraged the sharing of copyrighted materials, which of course had the movie and music studios up in arms and going to court to fight piracy.

But even in this case, the Supreme Court did not say that peer-to-peer file- sharing software should be illegal because it could be used to violate copyright laws. Instead, it said Grokster and StreamCast were promoting their technologies for illegal purposes, and thus the companies were liable.

With the new protections, the gun industry won't have to worry about that. It will be able to dispense with pretense in its marketing. We might actually see some truthful gun ads, perhaps one that quotes William Barclay "Bat" Masterson: "Always remember that a six-shooter is made to kill the other fellow with and for no other reason on earth."

Honesty in advertising - won't it be wonderful? And that might inspire the anti-gun crowd to go about its crusade honestly, pursuing a constitutional amendment, rather than back-door approaches through product-liability suits. And then there could be an honest discussion about guns in America.

My quick, personal view of gun control. Criminals, by definition, do not follow the law. That's why they are criminals. The laws that are being pushed for gun control will only affect those who are prone to following the law anyway (i.e. honest, law-abiding citizens). I personally do not own a gun, but I feel that if you are not a criminal, you should be able to own a gun, period. However, I am against people that feel that they should be able to have enough guns to supply a small army. Use some common sense as well. Do you really need that anti-aircraft missle launcher to hunt deer? Do you really need that M60 to go turkey shooting? Is that AK47 really going to help you hit more ducks? And no, you really don't need to shoot your shotgun in the air to celebrate the New Year. Remember, the pellets will land somewhere.

Logged

Evolution does not happen unless there is conflict that spurs change in order to compete. Continually go without challenging yourself and one day you'll wake up to find yourself extinct.

Do you really need that anti-aircraft missle launcher to hunt deer? Do you really need that M60 to go turkey shooting? Is that AK47 really going to help you hit more ducks?

Please note that the BATFE classifies M60s and AK 47s as Class III firearms, which basically means anyone legally owning one has: a) paid for an expensive license, b) undergone an extensive background check, and c) likely paid several thousand dollars for the firearm. Folks laying out that kind of cash are unlikely to use the firearm to blast bunnies or whatever, and indeed, last I heard, not a single registered Class III firearm has ever been found to have been used in a crime. A pretty good track record seeing as the law that set up this system has been on the books since the 1930s.

As for anti-aircraft missle launchers, if you got one you'd best expect SWAT to show up some day and haul your carcass off.

I would add to list of arms that the media likes to say all gun owners have such as the fully automatic weapons listed by AlDurr. The highly touted cop killer bullet, which no cop has ever been killed by. As for rockets, I've fired them before and think they are over rated, of course I was in the Marines at the time and full auto is just a huge waste of ammo. I'd rather use a shotgun. WOOF P.C.

Do you really need that anti-aircraft missle launcher to hunt deer? Do you really need that M60 to go turkey shooting? Is that AK47 really going to help you hit more ducks? And no, you really don't need to shoot your shotgun in the air to celebrate the New Year. Remember, the pellets will land somewhere.

was my attempt at humor. Obviously it didn't translate well. My point at the attempt at humor is that there are some law-abiding people that go too far and then make others nervous and stupid. When that happens, then the good people get treated like criminals and the criminals continue on anyway. I am serious about responsible gun ownership, though. If you are not a criminal, and can afford to legally obtain a gun, more power to you. Don't penalize good, law-abiding people for things that criminals do anyway.

Logged

Evolution does not happen unless there is conflict that spurs change in order to compete. Continually go without challenging yourself and one day you'll wake up to find yourself extinct.

Sorry if I came on too strong. I've encountered similar straw men in other circumstances where a tongue wasn't planted in cheek. It always galls me when someone pretends to explore the limits of a right that they don't believe exists in the first place. Didn't mean to lump you in that category.

"Our main agenda is to have all guns banned. We must use whatever means possible. It doesn't matter if you have to distort the facts or even lie. Our task of creating a socialist America can only succeed when those who would resist us have been totally disarmed." -Sara Brady, Chairman, Handgun Control Inc, to Senator Howard Metzenbaum. The National Educator, January 1994, Page 3.

"We can't be so fixed on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans." -President William Jefferson Clinton, March 1, 1993 during a press conference in Piscataway, NJ. Source: Boston Globe, 3/2/93, page 3.

"My general counsel tells me that while firearms are exempted from our jurisdiction under the Consumer Product Safety Act, we could possibly ban bullets under the Hazardous Substances Act." -Richard O. Simpson, Chairman, U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. 1973

"We must do whatever we can to regulate how guns are used. I've been the victim of a stabbing." -Al Sharpton, May 3, 2003

"Waiting periods are only a step. Registration is only a step. The prohibition of private firearms is the goal." -Janet Reno

"Gun violence won't be cured by one set of laws. It will require years of partial measures that will gradually tighten the requirements for gun ownership, and incrementally change expectations about the firepower that should be available to ordinary citizens." -New York Times, December 21, 1993

Rush- A member of the Kentucky Turkey Hunters Hall of Fame shot an alleged intruder in his home early yesterday, Kentucky State police said. Roland Burns, 65, of Rush, told investigators that he awoke shortly before 12:30 am. to find the man in his home in rural Boyd County, Trooper Ed Ginter said. Shannon Scott Conley, 32, of Rush, was pronounced dead at the scene. No charges have been filed in the case. State Police are investigating. Ginter said Burns told investigators that he was awakened by a vehicle in his driveway. He said he went to investigate and found the alleged intruder in his house. Burns told police he returned to his bedroom for his gun. "Mr. Burns ordered the man to leave the home." Ginter said in a press release. "A struggle ensued, and Mr. Conley was fatally wounded." Burns who was intoduced into the Turkey Federation, Hall of Fame was not injured, Ginter said. ( Lexington Herald-Leader ) Woof P.C.

An 87-year-old East St. Louis woman fatally shot a man early this morning as he was trying to break into her house.

Police said they found the man, Larry D. Tillman, 49, of East St. Louis on the enclosed front porch of the woman?s house in the 2100 block of Gaty Avenue. He had pulled the telephone wires from the side of the house, then removed security bars from a porch window.

As the man was breaking through a storm door that leads into the house itself, the woman fired several shots through her front door, striking Tillman once in the chest.

Police said the shots were fired from a pistol, most likely a gun that her daughter had given her after a man broke into the elderly woman?s house in December, battered her and stole some items.

The man may have been dead for as long as four hours before police arrived. Police said that the woman was not sure that she had hit Tillman when she fired the shots about 2 a.m. However, she was too afraid to go outside to check and could not call for help because the telephone lines were dead.

When the woman?s daughter arrived about 6 a.m. to bring her mother breakfast, she found the dead man on the porch, police said.

Illinois State Police Master Sgt. Jim Morrisey said evidence taken from the December home invasion would be compared to the break-in today to see if Tillman was responsible for both crimes.

Two weeks ago, the very anti-gun, pro-gun-registry Toronto Star probably did more than any other media outlet to undermine the recent call by the Ontario provincial government for a ban on all handguns in the province.

On Jan. 28, the Star ran a map of southern Ontario and cottage country showing the number of legal firearms per district.

Using statistics obtained from the federal firearms registry, the paper showed its readers that in the areas around the town of Orillia, there have been up to 47 firearms licences issued for every 100 households -- the highest rate in the province. Large numbers of licences also have been granted around Durham and Orangeville, Cambridge and Peterborough.

Indeed, that swath of Ontario from Lake Huron in the west to Georgian Bay in the north, around Lake Simcoe through Hastings to Prince Edward County, is veritably bristling with guns.

Most districts nearer Toronto have between four and 12 registered gun owners per 100 homes. Much of the 905 area has between two and six.

But right down in the centre of Toronto, standing out like a strobe light, were several neighbourhoods with two or fewer firearms licences per 100 households. From Pearson International Airport to the Don Valley Parkway, and between the 407 and the Lake, Ontario is nearly gun-free, according to the Star.

But of course, that is exactly where most gun crimes take place. The conclusion to be drawn from the Star's graphic is obvious: The most sensational shootings and highest number of gun murders in Ontario occur within the area that already has by far the lowest levels of legal firearm ownership.

With this one map, the Star unwittingly proved correct those who argue that a ban on all legal handguns will do nothing to reduce gun crime in Toronto. It also debunked all those, such as the Ontario government, the Liberal Party of Canada and the Star itself, who have made a ban the lynchpin of their crime-reduction strategies.

The simple, inescapable truth is that most firearms crimes being committed in Ontario are not being committed with legal guns, so no ban on legal guns -- whether handguns or shotguns and rifles -- is going to have any impact on crime rates.

Most gun crimes are not being committed by gun owners licensed under Ottawa's registry scheme. So no campaign to make licensed owners surrender their firearms in a mass confiscation is going to have any impact either.

Indeed, from a statistical point of view, a ban on handguns would be the least likely ban to have any appreciable effect.

Canada's law-abiding gun owners, collectors, hunters and sport shooters own approximately nine "long guns" -- hunting rifles or shotguns -- for every one handgun. In Ontario, the federal registry knows of 1,839,155 long guns, but just 215,372 handguns, and most of both types of these legal guns are not in Toronto.

If fewer than two in 100 Toronto households contain registered guns, then likely fewer than two in 1,000 contain registered handguns. The Ontario government could send the police to every home in T.O. to collect every pistol and revolver identified by Ottawa's databanks and still seize only a tiny number of handguns.

And those wouldn't be the handguns being used on the streets anyway.

After the shooting of more than a dozen pupils at Scotland's Dunblane Primary School in March, 1996, the British government banned private ownership of all handguns.

The judge who investigated the causes of the massacre recommended against such a ban, but because mass murderer Thomas Hamilton had used several pistols in the commission of his crime, the government in London bulled ahead anyway. It wanted to send a message that it was doing something.

In the decade before the ban, gun violence in Britain rose 12%. In the decade since, it has risen 64%.

Handguns are technically banned from New York, Washington D.C. and Chicago, too. But not until those cities ramped up police patrols and began getting tough on criminals did any of them experience drops in gun crime.

Banning legal handguns is nothing more than a victory for symbolism over substance, for activity over achievement.